Registered Sex Offender Charged with Sexual Exploitation

BOSTON—A Williamstown man who is a registered sex offender was charged today with sexually exploiting a 16-year-old boy.

Ronald Brown, 50, was charged in a complaint with sexual exploitation of children.

According to the complaint, Brown is a level-two registered sex offender, based upon a 1995 Connecticut conviction for sexual assault of a 12-year-old boy. In December 2012, Brown met a 16-year-old male on a website called silverdaddies.com. Brown engaged the boy in a long series of texts, chat sessions, and e-mails, many of which involved explicit sexual communications. On January 8, 2013, Brown viewed the boy masturbating online via Skype and received a photograph of the boy displaying his penis.

Brown also arranged for the boy to run away from home so that they could live together as romantic partners. Brown purchased a one-way airline ticket for the boy to fly from his home to Newark, New Jersey, sent $150 for traveling expenses and instructed him to erase files on his computer. On January 19, 2013, the boy ran away from his home and flew to Newark, where Brown met him. The two drove into New York where they engaged in sex, before continuing toward Massachusetts. Ultimately, Brown was stopped by the police, who had been alerted to the boy’s disappearance.

The maximum sentence under the statute is 50 years in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today. The case was investigated with the assistance of the Williamstown Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police, and the New York State Police. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow of Ortiz’s Springfield Branch Office.

The details contained in the complaint are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.